Archive for February, 2008
Google Maps Bangkok: Never Ever Again Lost
View Larger Map Still lost in town? Still don’t own that fancy GPS gadget? Get to know your way around Big Mango’s city jungle: Google Maps have released their map of Bangkok (and Thailand!) in English . No more excuses to miss that date because you couldn’t find that place. Highly personalizable interface! Get
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Bangkok For The Well-Heeled: Members-Only Pacific City Club
// It’s that place in town that needs no advertising. Well, it can’t advertise. It’s a members-only club. Not that type of private club with bar-fines though. But a classy business club with no walk-ins, no tourists in slippers and shorts: Bangkok’s Pacific City Club is a safe haven for the epikureer and gourmand. The
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The Return Of The Great Divider
February 28th, 2008: Thaksin Shinawatra, the great divider, as intensely hated as loved, ends one and a half years in exile. To clear his name and get his hands on the frozen millions. Thaksin is back home – in what turns out to be one of the longest days in the life of Thaksin. The
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The Homecoming Of Thaksin
In a carefully choreographed show of the faithful former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will be welcomed back to Thailand on Thursday, February 28th, at ETA 9.40 am at Suvarnabhumi airport. Probably “politely” arrested upon arrival Thaksin will then head to the Supreme Court and apply for bail – while the Thai voters finally get what
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Thailand’s Gay Past
Mention homosexuality and many Thais will blame it on recent Western influences. Ask Varaporn Vichayarath what she thinks, however, and she would simply smile before providing a list of old temples with murals depicting same-sex courtship. Yes, homosexual courtship between both men and women. And yes, at temples. Temple murals show a Thai Kamasutra –
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Our Dear “Invisible Hand”
The real power in Thailand, it seems to be, is an “invisible hand.” That invisible hand has become Thailand’s political buzzword when troubles loom. It’s the buzzword though uniquely used by the neo-populist movement of the Thaksinists. There doesn’t seem to be a soul left within a paranoid PPP that hasn’t been touched in some
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Muay Thai Up Close
Ever witnessed a Muay Thai fight? Muay Thai is not just about tears and sweat and blood and broken dreams. Muay Thais is a pan-religious experience. Just to mention the repetitive monotonous intro that lifts you into a trance-like mood. And the dance, the wais and the prayers, the garlands and the invocation of magic
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Thailand’s Latest Armed Resistance: Noise Fighters Of UURFAAN
If you dare to leave Thailand from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport on February 23rd, chances are you get acquainted with the “United Urban Rocket Front Against Airport Noise” (UURFAAN). Based on the beautiful tradition of the Bun Bang Fai rocket festival in beautiful Yasothon, residents of Suvarnabhumi take Yasothon’s craft into real-life-action. They announced that
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Poetic Bangkok
There’s a new book about our beloved’n’behated Bangkok: “Bangkok”. A hymn to the quiet poetry of our misunderstood megalopolis. It’s an illustrated book more precisely. With photographs shot by Peter Nitsch, 34, a richly awarded German photographer living between Bangkok and Munich. You’ll say that Bangkok is never poetic and that there are already whole
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Has The New Witch Hunt Just Started?!
In the first week of HE Samak Sundaravej being our new prime minister we were in for a big surprise – if not advice. To this day we thought that the Thammasat University massacre of October 6th, 1976, ended the lives of dozens of students. But we were all wrong. HE Samak assured us as
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